What To Do When They "Let" Us Win Elections

Yesterday we witnessed an increasingly rare phenomenon: We the People won at the ballot box.

In Ohio and Mississippi voters successfully killed two bills that furthered the Union-Busting, Women-Hating agenda of the extreme right. Senate Bill 5 was defeated by a massive statewide labor coalition, fighting to reclaim their right to collectively bargain in the Buckeye State. In the Bible Belt, women -- and more than a few good southern men -- stood together to defeat an initiative that would have defined life at the beginning of fertilization, a head-on challenge to Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose.

We're happy, of course, for the workers of Ohio who still own their voices, and the women in Mississippi who still own their bodies. But there's a real downside to yesterday's news for progressive-minded Election Integrity activists.

Every time "our side" wins at the voting booth, it becomes much more difficult to talk about our favorite topic: computerized election fraud.

So what the hell happened? What to make of this bump in the road under the Apocalypse Juggernaut Express our country has become? Why didn't they rig the Trojan Horse computerized voting machines like we damn well know they can do? What stopped them this time?

The fact is that we don't know -- and we never will. We can speculate, that's all. Because our votes are still counted in the electronic dark by secret, proprietary software, none of us can say with certainty what happened in any given election.

Here are some options:

* we really won with absolutely no attempted hacking or rigging the machines

* we were "allowed" to win -- throwing us a bone to take our guard down so we're less vigilant about election fraud leading into the 2012 campaigns

* the results were pre-programmed against us but the turn-out and strength of opposition voters was too high

* the rigging was derailed or sabotaged from within -- counter-rigging? Outside hack?

* almost any other scenario you might concoct

I was chatting on Facebook last night with a few EI activists, deconstructing what just occured, and in particular Sierra Nolan's insightful responses are worth posting here.

"I think it is all gamed so that there are wins to throw off investigation and analysis of the system. While I was excited and happy about many of the outcomes, I was also thinking about how this is going to make getting the message out all that more difficult. The best way I have found is to compare it to gambling and how the machines are gamed.

I think Mississippi discovered that the language of their bill went too far and would have resulted in some major financial loss for corporate powers. It would have also brought about a lot of court cases they were not yet ready to fight. The fight to make abortion illegal will continue but via another route. . .

. . . I think it would have been too obvious (to rig it), and they are holding those aces to play in 2012. If they had rigged the Ohio vote tonight with a 25 point spread going in and the entire world saying it was an easy no problem win for the unions, after what happened in WI and what's going on in MI, surely every torch and pitchfork in the Midwest would have justifiably marched in ready to battle it out in Buckeye state. The Mississippi thing, not sure: maybe they just finished Lysistrata at the ladies book club and whoever rigs the machines there would have been directly affected? That's a bit tongue in cheek, but, honestly, men have something invested in their sexual partners' access to birth-control and reproductive options, too."

So, what do you think? Now that our elections are naught but a big guessing game, and we still enjoy the tattered illusion of a free country -- feel free to guess what actually happened yesterday in our elections!

But whatever you do, don't let your guard down. We can celebrate the occasional jackpot in this rigged slot-machine voting system, but remember -- the house always wins in the end.

From Shari Merel: Well invisible vote-counting is anything “the counters” behind the scenes wish it to be whenever they wish it. Firmware widely in use in elections globally is flashable technology, down to the single unit instruction. N.G.O.s under U.N. auspices some years back saw to that, when highly suspect voting systems were fast-tracked overseas for use in major elections. Perhaps it’s time for us to cease dissecting individual “election” outcomes, “election” incidents and equipment, both in U.S.A. and overseas. It’s just “busy work” that we’ve been given. No one wins with such outrageous systems in place. With unverifiable vote counts, no verified checks or balances, sleight of hand and “smoke and mirrors” — we just don’t know who is or isn’t “elected”; though we “know them by their fruits,” don’t we?If unduly elected are in power, then what of their appointees? Are they not unduly appointed too…, yet making policy and designating resources? Seems to me that we have officials in place worldwide without our mandate. If not elected, then who are they, what are they doing there, and why?

From Mary Recall Walker Magnuson: Well, how would we know THIS outcome, if we know not the other outcomes to be true? Which was my point in the first place last night when I indicated that we’d “been granted” a successful evening, politically. I attribute it NOT to the folks who were out there working (although I know that they should certainly have some pats on the back, so to speak), but rather to OWS in all of its mighty splendor. THEY are the ones who’re doing something – and it is HUGE. This is why we’ve gotten the response we got from the controllers last evening.

From Karen Smith via Black Box Voting on Facebook: someone earlier in the post said it might take hundreds for a rig,but i find that far fetched because even when experts find enough evidence to fill a football stadium,nothing is done..look at the evidence in the alvin greene “win” in sc…..bradblog does a complete summary and you can still read it all in the archives but the following are some of the big pieces………………….One potential red flag: A significant difference between the results of absentee and election day ballots.
According to [Rawl campaign manager Walter] Ludwig, of the state’s 46 counties, half have a disparity of greater than 10 percentage points between the absentee and election day ballots.

“The election day ballots all favor Mr. Greene. We don’t know what it means,” Ludwig said in an interview. “We did significantly better on absentees than Election Day, which is according to the mathematicians, quite significant. The other reason is, it didn’t happen in any other races on the ballot.”

In Lancaster County, Rawl won absentee ballots over Greene by a staggering 84 percent to 16 percent margin; but Greene easily led among Election Day voters by 17 percentage points.

In Spartanburg County, Ludwig said there are 25 precincts in which Greene received more votes than were actually cast and 50 other precincts where votes appeared to be missing from the final count.

“In only two of 88 precincts, do the number of votes Greene got plus the number we got equal the total cast,” Ludwig said.

25 precincts in which greene recieved more votes than cast…now do the clerks of those county precincts need to be in on the rig? i do not think so because they are so used to saying,glitch,ect,they just turn the other way,remember there is no need for any ballot switching in touchscreen states

so the big point is ,in miss WE WILLNEVERKNOW if tuesdays outcome is anywhrere near accurate because the powers that be have taken the right to oversee our elections away from the average citizen

From Bev Harris: Victoria, the number of people required depends on the scale of the election. In a single jurisdiction, one person. In a state, depends on the situation, but by focusing on the jurisdictions that are “open for business”, if they are large, still just 3-4 people. In a national election, refer back to state, which goes back to identifying the jurisdictions in play.

From Karen Smith: in miss it very well could of been rigged,the person amendment may have been placed on ballot merely as an open spot so the id amendment could prevail….the more columns the easier it is to move numbers…in miss with the touchscreens it would take only a couple of insiders since there is absolutely nothing to count(no cover up nessecary past denying the memory cards)

From Jim Mueller : Maybe they did but they can’t reverse a landslide without significantly increasing their risks of being caught. Or they decided not to try because these were not important enough to take the risk.
If they do it too often they will get caught and so they are waiting until the big elections.
In Ohio they threw out the law trashing the unions but the Republicans are still in control of everything and they will ease off their dismantling of the safety nets until after the next election.
On MSNBC this morning Joe Scarredbrain said that Kasich is now doing what Walker is doing, working with the Democrats.
He swallowed the propaganda. Walker isn’t working with Democrats he just said he was going to.

Victoria- Maybe potential results weren’t deemed a threat. Maybe it’s just more wise to use election tweaking power occasionally, always being mindful that the more it is used the more evidence exists that it exists.